


but it's so hard, my love, to say it to you out loud

by 0hHeyThereBigBadWolf



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Arthur Has Some Problems, Arthur Knows About Merlin's Magic (Merlin), Bedtime Stories, Do Not Re-Post To Another Site, Emotionally Repressed, Exhaustion, Flowers, Gentle Merlin, Idiots in Love, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:48:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24279100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0hHeyThereBigBadWolf/pseuds/0hHeyThereBigBadWolf
Summary: With his disheveled damp hair and oversized white shift, he looks nothing so much like a young child fresh-woken from a bad dream and wary about going back to sleep, evidenced by the bruise-coloured shadows smeared beneath his eyes. It's easy to forget, sometimes, how young Arthur truly is. Merlin sometimes forgets how youngheis supposed to be.
Relationships: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 439
Collections: Scruffy Pendragon Fest





	but it's so hard, my love, to say it to you out loud

The sound of the door closing brings Merlin's head up from where it'd been bent to the task of stoking the fire, and almost immediately, he wishes he hadn't looked at all. "Maiden's mercy, what did you _do?_ Roll in it?" he exclaims in despair, brushing hearth soot from his knees and hanging up the fire poker.

Arthur, the smug bastard, gives him a quick grin, a flash of white teeth in his muddied face. "Maybe." His hair is slicked down with mud as well, more of it splattered all over his gambeson, maille, tunic, breeches, boots. He's left a drippy, gritty trail all the way through his chambers, undoubtedly leading all the way down the corridors and stairs right back out to the training field. It certainly wouldn't take a master assassin to find him.

Merlin resists the urge to take a page from his mother's book and chase him right back outside with a twig broom, then dump a bucket or two of water over him. The bucket wouldn't be necessary now, though, considering how hard it's raining. He'd just bar the door so Arthur couldn't get back in, let nature rinse him off. "Bath. Now," he says instead, scrubbing a hand over his eyes. Goddess preserve him, he'll have a hell of a time cleaning that mess out of Arthur's maille. He'll have to spell it out, he just knows it.

Arthur starts peeling himself out of his training kit, thankfully standing in one place as he does so, and drops it in a pile on the floor beside him.

The wet-fabric sound of it all makes Merlin sigh again. "You know, Arthur, I'm glad you're going back to training again, but why would you go _now?"_ he asks; the windows rattle in their panes with the next roll of thunder.

"A warrior has to be able to fight in all kinds of conditions, _Mer_ lin. What do you think happens if there's a war on during storm season? Campaign called on account of weather?" Arthur sweeps his hair back out of his face with a hand; with all the mud in his hair, it actually stays back, though not perfectly, sticking up in odd places, plastered flat in others.

Merlin bites his lips together on a laugh. For all the ache it gives him, seeing Arthur look so worn and weary, it is sometimes all he can do not to laugh those mornings when Arthur wakes up with the most intense cases of bedhead. He looks like a demented blond rooster. Now, he more closely resembles a bedraggled kitten, but the effect is still the same. "As you say, sire. _Onhǽte þá wæter,"_ he murmurs, touching the side of the tub as he walks past the bath to crouch beside the pile of muddy clothes, picking Arthur's maille out of the lot and setting it out on the table. He'll do that first, before it all dries in.

Arthur groans as he slides down into the bath. "You may be a terrible servant, Merlin, but you excel in this," he remarks.

"Good to know. Merlin the great and powerful, master of heating bathwater for arrogant prats."

Arthur doesn't have anything within arm's reach to throw at him, so instead he settles for scooping up a handful of water and flinging it in his direction. Dunking his head, he picks up the ball of soap and starts scrubbing at his hair with it, muddy lather running between his fingers.

"Hey, easy, or you'll tangle," Merlin scolds. When Arthur only squints at him in puzzlement, one eye screwed shut against the soapy water, he sighs and shuffles across the floor until he's beside the tub again. "Move over a bit, tilt your head back," he instructs, turning his sleeves back to the elbow.

Water sloshes at the edge of the tub as Arthur shifts, putting himself in front of Merlin. The sharp lines of his shoulder blades are still too visible under his skin, the ridges of his spine like a delicate chain of bone. Merlin resists the urge to run his fingers up each link, instead rising up on his knees a bit so he can better reach Arthur's hair, now a sodden mess of lather and mud. "You can't scrub like that when your hair's this long. You'll tangle it all up, and then _I'll_ have to comb it out," he adds as he starts combing his fingers through picking apart the tangles with slow care and easing out the clods of mud.

"Mm," is the only reply he gets. Arthur tilts his head back a little further, and Merlin can see his eyes are closed, expression lax. He's starting to suspect that Arthur might have actually rolled in the mud on purpose.

Smiling a little, he gentles his touch a little more; taking up the soap ball again, he starts washing the rest of the mess out, perhaps taking a little longer than he necessarily needs to do so. Once he rinses out the last of the lather, he conjures a bottle of lavender oil from the cupboard, magicking the cork out, then dribbles some of it into the water, over his fingers. Arthur claims it helps with his aches after training, which may be true, but Merlin knows he also just likes the smell of it. Sometimes, when Arthur drags him out on hunting trips, he takes the opportunity to collect plants for Gaius, and he's seen Arthur surreptitiously pull a few strands of wild lavender to tuck in his bedroll, then complain that Merlin could at least try to keep his clutter contained to a single area. He imagines it would cause Arthur some kind of lasting physical trauma to simply admit that he likes flowers.

"There. Rinse. I left your nightshift on your chair," he murmurs as he withdraws, drying his hands on a corner of the towel before stepping away. He can't charm all of Arthur's clothes clean without at least some suspicion from the laundresses, but he does clear it from the floor, muttering to himself about the idiotic behaviours of royal prats.

"You know I can still hear you, don't you?" Arthur remarks, standing in his loose white nightshift and toweling his hair at least halfway dry.

"Congratulations."

The prince regent snorts and balls up the towel, pitching it at Merlin's head.

Yanking the damp cloth off his shoulder, Merlin throws the towel into the basket with the rest of the washing, then turns back to Arthur, gazing at him for a long moment. The prince regent is sitting up against his headboard, hands resting limp in his lap, and with his disheveled damp hair and oversized white shift, he looks nothing so much like a young child fresh-woken from a bad dream and wary about going back to sleep, evidenced by the bruise-coloured shadows smeared beneath his eyes. It's easy to forget, sometimes, how young Arthur truly is. Merlin sometimes forgets how young _he_ is supposed to be.

When the other man makes no real move to lay down, he ventures, "Is there anything else you require?"

Arthur actually startles, like he's entirely forgotten Merlin is there. "Huh? Oh. Uhm…no. No, I suppose not," he mutters, a crease between his brows as he picks at the embroidery on the blanket as though it's done him some kind of harm.

Merlin stays put, still gazing across the chamber at his damn fool of a prince. He casts a glance towards the maille still resting on the table, mud slowly drying in it, then lets out a sigh. Seven hells, he has to do everything around here, doesn't he? "Actually, sire, if you wouldn't mind, I'd rather get started on this now, before it all dries in. I imagine you'll need it tomorrow," he says, gesturing towards the maille with one hand as he approaches to snuff the last candles.

Relief flickers across Arthur's face like a stray sunbeam glittering through a cloudbank, there and gone again in an instant yet no less noticeable for its brevity. "Taking the initiative, _Mer_ lin? I'm almost impressed," he drawls out, though it lacks his usual snap behind it, slouching back against the headboard.

"Will the noise keep you up? I can take it to the armoury if you'd prefer. Gods know you need your beauty rest."

"No, no, I want to witness this miracle with my own eyes."

And that is how one does it. "Have you ever heard the story of Novolosak?" he asks as he conjures the cleaning kit he's taken to keeping in his room lest he terrify some poor squire by making equipment disappear from the armoury.

Arthur blinks. "Novo—what?"

"I'll take that as a no. Here, lay down, I'll tell you about him."

The prince regent gives him a look hovering somewhere between offended and amused, which is par for the course in their conversations. "I'm a bit old for bedtime tales, you know."

"Nonsense. Come on, lay down." Kit tucked under an arm, he brings one of the candles over to the table, drawing out the chair and dragging Arthur's maille towards him. "Novolosak was—I'll not tell you if you aren't lying down."

Arthur stares at him for a moment, seemingly deciding as to whether or not to be stubborn for the sake of it or to accept his bedtime story like a good boy. Finally, he slides himself further under the covers and settles himself into the blankets, folding an arm up under his pillow to prop his head up a bit. He raises his brows at Merlin as if to say, 'there, see?'

Smiling, Merlin starts laying out his kit on the table beside him, talking as he goes. His mother had told him the tales of Novolosak when he was a boy, and now that he's older, he wonders if perhaps his father had told them to her, though he's not sure why Balinor would've told her a children's tale. Still, he's always loved the story of Novolosak, the littlest dragon who had many adventures on his journey home after getting blown away from his nest by a windstorm.

As he speaks, he works at cleaning Arthur's maille, scrubbing out the mud and repairing the broken links. Soon, his hands fall in with the cadence of his voice, magic rising up with lazy ease, letting the slow calm of it wind through his fingers and strengthen the blessings he's woven through each ring and rivet. He's bound them together, each one to the next, like tying the ends of threads together in a tight knot so it's impossible to tell where it starts and where it ends.

Novolosak has only just made it to the jungles when a light snore slithers out from the direction of the bed. Merlin looks up to see Arthur asleep, mouth slightly open. He huffs a soft laugh, returning to the maille; he'd thought he would at least get to the part with the tiger and the arrow. Ah, well, he'll just have to pick it up again tomorrow night.

When the council finally takes a break for lunch, Arthur wastes no time in bolting for his chambers. To his dismay, Merlin isn't there waiting for him, but as quick as his irritation sparks, it gutters out again. His training kit is laid out on the table with exacting care, plate and maille glittering under the slanting sun, gambeson, sword belt, and scabbard placed out beside it.

The gleaming array of steel and leather isn't what truly snags his attention, however. In the middle of the table where the candlesticks usually are, there's now a milkglass vase which looks suspiciously like it's been taken from a noblewoman's chambers, holding a spill of fresh flowers.

He steps closer, reaching out to drag a fingertip over one of the stems curiously. They're unevenly cut, and some are a bit crushed, missing a few petals or leaves, and the blossoms are all purple, blue, and white, standing sharply apart from the red-gold-brown of his chambers. He can recognise nearly all of them from Merlin's incessant blathering on hunting trips, always going on about what they're used for and how many different kinds there are, collecting great armfuls of it to bring back with them—lilac, pennyroyal, saxifrage, borage, sage, yarrow, bryony, aquilegia, lamb's ears, snowdrop….

And lavender. More than anything else, lavender.

He casts a glance over his shoulder to make sure the door of his chamber is closed, then leans forward and buries his nose in a cluster of the tall purple flowers, breathing in slowly. Drawing back, he lets his gaze slide sideways, coming to rest on his training kit, and he finds himself smiling.

The council can wait a few hours.

**Author's Note:**

> Aquilegia—love  
> Borage—courage  
> Bryony—protection  
> Lamb's ears—support, gentleness  
> Lavender—devotion  
> Lilac—first love  
> Pennyroyal—peace  
> Sage—comfort in mourning  
> Saxifrage—balance, strength  
> Snowdrop—consolation, hope  
> Yarrow—cure for heartache


End file.
